Anxiety and How to Tame It with Transcendental Meditation

According to the latest studies, Transcendental Meditation is able to reduce the anxiety levels in case of people with high anxiety. It is good to know that trait anxiety refers to the general anxiety levels of people while state anxiety refers to the anxiety level of people at a given moment of time.

The Study

In order to make sure that the results will be representative for large numbers of patients, the researchers had a meta-analysis of 16 randomized control trials. 1295 people which came from different backgrounds and of different age groups,took part in this study.

Base of Comparison

To find out how effective TM really is, is has been compared with relaxation techniques, group psychotherapy, and other traditional and more common treatment methods. The point has been to find out whether TM works better than present practices or not.

Results

In case of prison inmates and veterans with PTSD anxiety has been dramatically reduced with the help of TM. On the other hand, in case of the patients with mild levels of anxiety the results weren’t that spectacular, such as in case of college students and average adults.

Explanations

The specialists say that it is normal that in case a patient isn’t very anxious to start with, the results of TM will be modest. On the other hand, if a patient has big problems with anxiety, it is to be expected for the treatment to show better results, thus seeming more effective.

Symptoms

The good news regarding TM is that apparently it is able to help people in other areas of their lives as well. The participants of the study had lower blood pressure as a result of TM and their emotional numbness, insomnia, employment status, family problems, and alcohol and drug abuse also improved.

Control Groups

The participants in the control groups who received other kinds of treatments showed some improvement, such as muscle relaxation. Nonetheless, they did not benefit from the other effects of TM, such as improvement of mental health and recovery from their former stressors.

Placebo Effect

We can think of anxiety as a self-induced health problem and so it is possible for the treatments to have a placebo effect. This effect is only a temporary one and this is why the results of the studies have to be measured over a longer period of time. The results of TM seem to be long-lasting.